Best & worst of year 2007 - books
Jan. 13th, 2008 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bookzombieA bit late, but I wanted to get my 'official' best of year out to Vector before putting anything up year. So the list behind the cut are my best books of 2007. Those in bold are the ones I picked for the Vector piece.
Best of Year 2007
The Green Glass Sea - Ellen Klages
Affinity - Sarah Walters
The Hallowed Hunt - Lois McMaster Bujold
Trial of Flowers - Jay Lake
Snake Agent - Liz Williams
The Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia McKillip (Re-read so excluded from my official best of year, even though it's one of my favourite books)
Glasshouse - Charles Stross
The Lollipop Shoes - Joanne Harris (Fun, and more obviously magical, sequel to Chocolat)
Stay - Nicola Griffith
Melasine/The Virtu - Sarah Monette
The Ladies of Grace Adieu - Susanna Clarke
Nekropolis - Maureen F. McHugh
The Privilege of the Sword - Ellen Kushner
Ilario - Mary Gentle
A Stir of Bones - Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Life - Gwyneth Jones (Possibly one of her best books but very hard work - easy to admire, more difficult to actually like)
Alice in Sunderland - Bryan Talbot (Would have been in the top 5 if non-fiction was allowed in the brief!)
Living Next Door to the God of Love - Justina Robson (I liked this without understand lumps of it, frankly)
The Glass Harmonica - Louise Marley
Portable Childhoods - Ellen Klages
My Trade - Andrew Marr
Soundings: Reviews 1992 - 1996 - Gary K. Wolfe
There's very little actual science fiction in the list this year. There was lots of sf I enjoyed but very little that really stood out. There was nothing I really hated, that I actually finished anyway, but a few I wanted, or expected, to like more than I did:
Black Juice - Margo Lanagan (the collection was talked up by a lot of people and there were a couple of stories I really liked, but most I found just a bit meh.)
Keeping it Real/Selling Out - Justina Robson (disappointingly formulaic)
Shadows over Baker Street - ed. Michael Reaves & John Pelan (a few good stories in this Cthulhu/Sherlock Holmes crossover anthology, but way too many that avoided telling them as 'Holmes & Watson' stories which seemed to defeat the object)
Counting Heads - David Marucek (Marucek is one of the few short story writers who have managed to make me cry, but this, his first novel, just didn't quite hang together for me. And I was so looking forward to it...)
The Green Glass Sea - Ellen Klages
Affinity - Sarah Walters
The Hallowed Hunt - Lois McMaster Bujold
Trial of Flowers - Jay Lake
Snake Agent - Liz Williams
The Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia McKillip (Re-read so excluded from my official best of year, even though it's one of my favourite books)
Glasshouse - Charles Stross
The Lollipop Shoes - Joanne Harris (Fun, and more obviously magical, sequel to Chocolat)
Stay - Nicola Griffith
Melasine/The Virtu - Sarah Monette
The Ladies of Grace Adieu - Susanna Clarke
Nekropolis - Maureen F. McHugh
The Privilege of the Sword - Ellen Kushner
Ilario - Mary Gentle
A Stir of Bones - Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Life - Gwyneth Jones (Possibly one of her best books but very hard work - easy to admire, more difficult to actually like)
Alice in Sunderland - Bryan Talbot (Would have been in the top 5 if non-fiction was allowed in the brief!)
Living Next Door to the God of Love - Justina Robson (I liked this without understand lumps of it, frankly)
The Glass Harmonica - Louise Marley
Portable Childhoods - Ellen Klages
My Trade - Andrew Marr
Soundings: Reviews 1992 - 1996 - Gary K. Wolfe
There's very little actual science fiction in the list this year. There was lots of sf I enjoyed but very little that really stood out. There was nothing I really hated, that I actually finished anyway, but a few I wanted, or expected, to like more than I did:
Black Juice - Margo Lanagan (the collection was talked up by a lot of people and there were a couple of stories I really liked, but most I found just a bit meh.)
Keeping it Real/Selling Out - Justina Robson (disappointingly formulaic)
Shadows over Baker Street - ed. Michael Reaves & John Pelan (a few good stories in this Cthulhu/Sherlock Holmes crossover anthology, but way too many that avoided telling them as 'Holmes & Watson' stories which seemed to defeat the object)
Counting Heads - David Marucek (Marucek is one of the few short story writers who have managed to make me cry, but this, his first novel, just didn't quite hang together for me. And I was so looking forward to it...)